Bill would double federal funds to restore S.F. Bay

A volunteer search the marshes of Heron's Head Park in the Bayview district of San Francisco, during a beach cleanup day.

Photo: Michael Macor / Michael Macor / The Chronicle

WASHINGTON — San Francisco Bay is big, beautiful and beset by environmental problems, but it gets nowhere near the federal aid bestowed on other big bodies of water such as the Great Lakes or Chesapeake Bay.

California lawmakers led by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, and Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer introduced legislation last week to double the amount of federal grants to restore the bay, the largest estuary on the West Coast, to $10 million a year.

That still comes nowhere near the $300 million spent annually to restore the Great Lakes, or the $70 million spent on Chesapeake Bay.

One explanation is that Democrats control the congressional districts that ring San Francisco Bay and hold the state’s two Senate seats, while Republicans have controlled the House for several years and now run all of Congress. The other problem is that the bay and its watershed are in just one state.

The Great Lakes are surrounded by eight states, with 16 senators in both parties.

Chesapeake Bay borders two states, Maryland and Virginia, and its watershed includes six states, adding up to 12 senators. The Chesapeake also is near Washington and is a favored spot among retired lawmakers and administration officials.

“Geography plays a big role” in lack of attention to San Francisco Bay, said Patrick Band, campaign manager for Save the Bay, a group that works on environmental restoration of the bay.

The San Francisco Bay Restoration Act would allow money to be spent on restoring wetlands and wildlife habitat and improving water quality, following a plan already developed by local officials called the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for San Francisco Bay.

Its most prominent project is restoration of South Bay salt ponds to wetlands, a project that has been under way for a decade but has been slowed by lack of federal funds.

San Francisco Bay has been damaged by invasive species, habitat destruction and pollution, including an estimated 3 billion cigarette butts littered in the Bay Area each year. Band said cigarette butts make up 40 percent of the litter collected by volunteers and are highly toxic to fish.

Carolyn Lochhead is the Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she has covered national politics and policy for 22 years. She grew up in Paso Robles (San Luis Obispo County) and graduated from UC Berkeley cum laude in rhetoric and economics. She has a masters of journalism degree from Columbia University.